Power of Habit – Style

Olivier Cresp, a world-famous French perfumer and one of the most influential figures in the industry, came to Moscow. He gave an exclusive interview to Kommersant Style, in which he spoke about what scents he is currently inventing and what role Russia plays in the global perfume market.

— Tell us how you started?

— I started my career at the age of 18, it was a long time ago, more than 45 years have passed, I built a successful career, became a master perfumer – all thanks to fragrances that became real blockbusters. This is Thierry Mugler Angel, who literally opened the door to the world of recognition and success for me, Light Blue Dolce Gabbana, I am the co-author of YSl Black Opium, Elle, Mon Paris, my hands are the fragrances L’Eau Pair Kenzo, women’s Lacoste. I have a total of 440 fragrances in my portfolio, they are well received by the public, they sell well, so I can’t complain.

— With such a rich track record, how and why did Akro suddenly appear, how are you connected with this company?

— About seven years ago, my daughter Anais called me and said that she had found a perfume brand with an unusual concept, no one had ever done this before, and we urgently needed it. “Can you recreate bad habits? In a figurative sense, of course,” she asked. I agreed because my works are mainly based on images, they are not abstract. I started the line with Haze, it’s about cannabis, but that’s not that important because the first thing I care about is how to polish the idea with ingredients. Next, I think about how the scent will behave on the skin, how long it will last, what kind of sillage it will have. And we began to recreate various bad habits: passion for alcohol (for example, in the Malt fragrance I showed whiskey), smoking, gambling, workaholism. Then we thought about the name, “addict” had already been taken from Dior, “xs” from Paco Rabbane, and suddenly this “accro” appeared. In French, when something is “accro”, it is something you cannot resist. If I “accro” to coffee, then I am a coffee lover. Now we already have 11 “habit” scents, two are on the way – that’s how we plan.

— Do you plan to create useful addictions, from sports, for example?

– Yes, we thought about it, it seems to me that such a scent should definitely be clean and transparent. At first we wanted to represent only vices and addictions, but over time the concept of the brand has softened, and now we are talking about how to show pleasures too.

— Do you divide fragrances by gender?

— All of our fragrances are unisex, except perhaps Smoke or Malt, dedicated to the passion for smoking and alcohol, which are still more masculine in sound, but there is no such division officially. And Awake is our bestseller, it is dedicated to coffee, a very awakening morning aroma for everyone: there is vetiver, coffee, lemon, cardamom. When I created it, I was impressed by the coffee they drink in Dubai.

— It’s clear with coffee, but I’m not sure that in the case of whiskey, if a person likes to drink whiskey, he’ll want to smell like it.

— I understand what you mean, but the idea was to transform the drink into an aroma, take the best part of the whiskey (wood, oak, so tarred and salted, and it all smells very attractive) and “make friends” with the skin. The alcoholic notes go away and you are left with a very cool smell. Give it a try.

— Now everyone is rushing to the East, they want to sell perfumes there. How do you feel about this, given that historically in Asia, particularly in Japan, fragrances have a very intimate nature, being heavily perfumed is rude, it is literally a violation of personal space.

— Yes, Japan is a different story; they really don’t like fragrances very much. However, if you go to South Korea, China (I just returned from there), Indonesia, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, you will see a different picture. This is a huge market, there are a lot of people, tastes change and evolve a lot. Let’s say, niche fragrances came to China five years ago, and now buyers already understand this, they are interested in everything, they also have their own local brands, in general the market is much more interesting than in France, for example. In our country it is oversaturated, there are too many scents, and every brand is in search of new customers and markets.

— What do you think about the Russian market?

— I have been working with Russia for more than 40 years and I can say that it is a very dynamic and promising market, no matter what. I believe that Russia, China, North America are the three most active regions, in that order. It is your tradition to wear fragrances, and not just fragrances, but expensive ones with high-quality ingredients. In 1982–1990, I quite often traveled to Moscow, Riga, St. Petersburg, and created fragrances for local companies such as Novaya Zarya and Dzintars. So I know very well what I’m talking about.

— Tell me, how many fragrances does one person need?

— My mother used only one fragrance, and that was enough for her (it was Shalimar Guerlain), my dad loved Savage Dior, and now everything is changing quickly, young people are always on the move, they buy more and more new fragrances – there are many of them, and advertising is so attractive . But the question is that they don’t just buy it once, but come back for the same scent. I see this as a task – so that they have that same “accro” to the scents that I create.

Interviewed by Irina Kiriyenko